Panoramic photography, the taking of a photograph or photographs covering an elongated field of view, has a long history in photography. Perhaps the most primitive method of panoramic photography is the taking of several adjoining photos with a conventional camera and then mounting the prints together in alignment to achieve a complete panorama. Modern techniques adapt this method by using digital cameras to capture the images, and then using computer image processing techniques to align the images for printing as a single panorama.
The continuous development of digital camera technologies along with constantly increasing speed and processing power of computers have laid the foundation for digital imaging systems that are capable of acquiring image data for the automatic creation of wide to entire 360° panoramas, including both still panoramic images and dynamic panoramic movies.
Currently, panoramic video systems on the market have provided viewers with 360° omni-directional visual experiences. To go one step further, some panoramic video systems have been designed to create a “virtual reality” experience for a viewer when watching a panoramic movie by capturing 3-dimensional (3D) panoramic video images and playing back panoramic video images in 3D to the viewer. However, the existing panoramic video systems are not capable to provide 360° omni-directional sound field experiences to a viewer.